Shannon Dosemagen, Open Environmental Data Project

In Summer of 2021, I began thinking about hiring a fundraising professional for my new organization. But we don’t do work that cleanly sits in one field or another and I’d learned from my previous decade as an Executive Director of another organization that sometimes it’s just easier to do the work of fundraising myself rather than try and train someone into essentially experiencing the passion for the work in the same way I do. After some thought, I knew I wanted to think about the process of fundraising and development in a different way. I wanted to emulate the long term partnership that I’d felt with several of my previous funders, partnerships that led to us collaboratively thinking about impact, field wide direction, and provided me with sustainable support to then lead the way. Geoffrey was recommended to me and I cannot think of a better fit for the support and guidance I was looking for to think, do, and act differently around fundraising in my new organization. The work I’m doing on public health, climate and environment is urgent and yet at the same time requires long-term systems change. Geoffrey has been able to guide me in thinking about the partnership of philanthropy in a new way. He has talked me through communication structures and storytelling to help me recenter human experience as the core of work that can very quickly become mired in scientific and technical details and helped me to reconnect to my circles of colleagues through a process that has left me feeling supported, inspired, and hopeful about achieving the difficult things I’ve set out to do.